Category: Conservative Review
We all want healthy lunches for our kids — so why the partisan food fight?
The government shouldn’t be in the business of buying junk food for school children.
Of all the positions splitting Americans today, you wouldn’t expect this one to be controversial. And yet this is the plate we’ve been served.
Each side accuses the other of not caring about disadvantaged children — while both sides insist that no one should dictate what counts as ‘healthy’ food.
The Healthy SNAP Act of 2025 is currently awaiting action in the Senate Agriculture Committee, where it has sat since Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced it in February, with no markup or vote scheduled.
Even so, the bill — now championed by Republicans — has revived a familiar argument: Who should decide what children eat, and why do voters reverse their positions depending on which party proposes the rules?
Lunch lady
President Obama enacted his wife’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010 with the stated goal of providing USDA-approved nutritious meals to school children and combating childhood hunger and obesity. Michelle Obama advocated for children to have access to more vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and milk — and less sugary soda and junk food — which she claimed were especially hurting impoverished children.
“Think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap,” she said at the time. “Because here is the secret — if someone is doing that, they don’t care about your kid.”
Conservatives pushed back, suspecting Mrs. Obama of ulterior motives and calling the law an instance of government overreach. Whose business was it what children ate? Surely not the first lady’s.
There was a lot of fear (or hope) that when Trump got into office, he would overturn all that the Obamas had done and “simplify” the lunch menu.
No (burger) kings
The new president did not disappoint. Throughout his first term, President Trump steadily rolled back Obama-era school-nutrition standards. The USDA first relaxed rules on whole grains, sodium, and flavored milk in 2017 and finalized those changes in 2018. In early 2020, it proposed further revisions to ease fruit and vegetable requirements and expand options like pizza and burgers, drawing renewed national scrutiny.
Those efforts were partially blocked in court, and the underlying Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act remained intact. But the political terrain shifted over the next few years: Rising concern about obesity and chronic disease, new dietary-guideline updates, and state-level experiments with SNAP restrictions created an opening for conservatives to reframe nutrition policy as a matter of fiscal responsibility and public health rather than federal overreach.
Menu change
Fast-forward to 2025, and the same movement that once dismissed “nanny-state” lunch rules now promotes the Healthy SNAP Act — an initiative that mirrors Michelle Obama’s nutrition goals almost point for point.
All that’s changed is the politician behind the policy. That alone seems to be enough to flip public opinion. Voters who once said junk food was victimizing impoverished children now attack nearly identical proposals coming from the Trump administration.
The Healthy SNAP Act of 2025 would bar SNAP benefits from being used for the very same foods Michelle Obama targeted in 2010. According to Congress.gov, SNAP recipients would not be able to use benefits for “soft drinks, candy, ice cream, or prepared desserts, such as cakes, pies, cookies, or similar products.”
RELATED: $500 million in SNAP funds is reportedly spent on fast food because of state program
Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Where’s the beef?
Foods purchased with SNAP would have to meet nutritional standards based on sugar, fat, and salt content. In structure, the bill is strikingly similar to the Obama-era reforms. The only real difference is whose name is on it.
The same people who supported Michelle Obama’s restrictions now vehemently oppose nearly identical measures from Trump. Meanwhile those who once denounced government interference now applaud the idea when framed as a conservative reform. Each side accuses the other of not caring about poor children — while both sides insist that no one should dictate what counts as “healthy” food, unless their politician is doing the dictating. Party comes first, safety second, liberty somewhere further down the list.
Some liberals now argue that children deserve a treat — that SNAP should not limit junk-food purchases at all. But SNAP has always been regulated. In most states, fast food, hot deli meals, vitamins, alcohol, and tobacco have long been prohibited. WIC is even more restrictive to ensure mothers receive high-quality, protein-rich foods.
SNAP decision
Government aid will always come with rules. Whether it should include “treats” is a matter of personal philosophy. SNAP already provides incentives to buy fresh produce at farmers markets. Families can still make simple desserts within existing guidelines.
And any parent can spend a dollar on an occasional donut or soda if that is truly important to them — while still ensuring that children have reliable access to nutritious meals funded by taxpayers, who can rest easier at night knowing we are ensuring a better future for children.
Reasonable readers at this point should be asking themselves what they, as voters, really care about when it comes to policies like this. Would any of this be a discussion if voters thought less about who was in office? We all should be asking ourselves what it is we truly value and act accordingly.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — who in March introduced a similar, and in some respects even broader, bill of his own — put it this way:
“It makes no sense that taxpayer dollars are being used to fund an epidemic of obesity and diet-related illness in low-income communities. My bill ensures that this assistance program actually supports health and wellness, not chronic disease.”
His words sound eerily interchangeable with what Michelle Obama was saying 15 years ago. It makes one wonder if perhaps we don’t need to bicker over politics as much as we do. Maybe our differences aren’t as pronounced as we think — at least when it comes to the health of American children.
‘Let me help you out, dingbat!’ — Mark Levin savagely torches Rachel Maddow for accusing Trump of starting war with Venezuela
President Donald Trump obliterates Venezuelan drug boats smuggling loads of fentanyl into the United States, and the left accuses him of starting a war.
But it’s Venezuela’s narco‑terrorist regime that’s declared war on the United States, Mark Levin says, and President Trump has every right to respond as he sees fit.
Levin condemns radical left-wing pundits, like MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow, for accusing the Trump administration of starting a war with Venezuela.
“I don’t understand why we’re going to war with Venezuela, and I’m not sure the administration is even bothered to try to come up with anything even internally coherent,” she whined on the December 2 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
“Let me help you out, dingbat. Let me help you out,” Mark Levin fires back. “They are smuggling more drugs in the United States directly and through Mexico and with communist China than any other country on the face of the earth.”
For the first time in decades, he says, we have a president who actually takes seriously the Monroe Doctrine — an 1823 policy long abandoned or rejected by weak prior administrations that essentially says, “If something goes on in our hemisphere that affects our country, it’s our business, and we’re going to do something about it,” even if that means military action.
The accusation that Trump committed a war crime by striking a Venezuelan drug boat twice is just “sick” Democrat nonsense, Levin says.
“If another government … headed by a narco-terrorist is using the power of that government and the resources of that government, of that country, to kill American citizens — it doesn’t matter if they do it with fentanyl drugs; it doesn’t matter if they do it with biochemicals; it doesn’t matter if they poison our water or whatever — these are acts of war,” he asserts.
He then mocks the pearl-clutching Democrats shedding fake tears because narco-terrorists aren’t being politely handcuffed and read Miranda rights.
It’s really simple, he says. “Look at that, a drug boat’s coming. I think we’re going to blow it out of the water. Yes.”
The Constitution, Levin says, gives the president, as the commander in chief, the right to order military actions (like blowing up Venezuelan drug boats) without a formal declaration of war.
He explains that throughout American history, the majority of military actions issued by presidents occurred without Congress declaring war first.
Back in 1801, President Jefferson launched a full overseas naval war against the Barbary pirate states, which were attacking and kidnapping American merchant ships and sailors, without any formal declaration of war.
Calling Trump a war criminal is just proof that it’s not about democracy or the Constitution for Democrats. It’s about ideology.
“They’re on the side of the enemy,” Levin says.
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‘You done f**ked up, son!’ Cop rubs it in after capturing homicide suspect armed with handgun modified as fully automatic
Atlanta police officers from a special unit were seen on dashcam and bodycam videos converging upon and tackling a homicide suspect who was armed with a handgun modified as fully automatic, police said in a video released earlier this month.
Police said officers with the Auto Crimes Enforcement Unit were alerted to a homicide suspect driving in the area of Pickfair Way SW near Ashwood Avenue NW on Oct. 28.
‘Ram our f**kin’ car?’
The officers located the suspect’s vehicle and then used their patrol vehicles to box in the suspect’s vehicle, police said.
However, the suspect rammed patrol vehicles in front of him and behind him in an attempt to escape before fleeing from his vehicle while armed with a handgun that had been modified to be a fully automatic weapon, police said.
Image source: Atlanta Police Department video screenshot
While running from his car, the suspect threw the gun into an adjacent wooded area, after which officers took him down to the street.
Image source: Atlanta Police Department
“Get your ass on the ground!” one officer yelled at the suspect.
Once lying upon the street, the suspect quickly gave himself up, telling the arresting officer, “You got me!’
But the officer rubbed in the arrest just a bit, telling the suspect as he handcuffed him, “You done f**ked up, son! … Ram our f**kin’ car? We ain’t the normal police, pimp!”
Content warning: Language:
Police said the suspect was identified as 37-year-old Keith Hawkins, who was wanted for his involvement in a homicide that occurred at 700 Eloise Street SE on April 9.
Hawkins was charged with murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (two counts), possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, possession of a machine gun, willful obstruction of law enforcement officers, and operating a vehicle without insurance, police said.
Image source: Atlanta Police Department
Hawkins was taken to the Fulton County Jail for processing, police added.
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Trump official pins DC National Guard attack on Biden’s open border crisis
The Trump administration’s National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent exposed a terrifying reality about the fallout from former President Joe Biden’s open border crisis.
‘That number, alarmingly, remains unknown at this time.’
During a Thursday Committee on Homeland Security hearing, Kent testified that, under the Biden administration, thousands of foreign nationals with known or suspected terrorist ties were allowed into the country.
“Despite the progress that we’ve made so far in the Trump administration, the threat posed by terrorists of all brands remains very high right now,” Kent said in his opening statement before lawmakers.
He explained that the country is facing “a persistent threat from the individuals that were allowed into this country by the previous administration.”
Kent noted that the most significant threat “is the fact that we don’t know who came into our country in the last four years of Biden’s open borders.”
“What we have identified is alarming,” he stated, adding that the federal government recently issued a warning about the heightened risk of terrorist attacks, particularly posed by ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
Photo by GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images
“So far, NCTC has identified around 18,000 known and suspected terrorists that the Biden administration let come into our country,” Kent revealed.
He accused the prior administration of having “facilitated” the entry of individuals with ties to jihadi groups, including the Afghan suspected of attacking National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., on November 26. The attack resulted in the death of 20-year-old National Guard member Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, while Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe was wounded.
“That Afghan was brought into the country as a group of over 100,000 Afghans who were brought here during the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. These individuals, despite what has been reported, were not vetted properly to come into the United States,” Kent said.
Photo by GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images
He stated that the NCTC is working with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to track down individuals with ties to terrorist organizations. However, he noted that the 18,000 figure does not include foreign nationals who came into the U.S. illegally through the open border.
“That number, alarmingly, remains unknown at this time,” Kent remarked. “We’re trying to figure out who those individuals are as well.”
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Kamala Harris Floats ‘Honest’ Reality Check Of Trump Economy, Seemingly Forgetting Biden Admin’s Affordability Crisis
‘the American dream has become more of a myth than a reality’
Kids have already found a way around Australia’s new social media ban: Making faces
The liberal-dominated Australian parliament passed an amendment to its online safety legislation last year, imposing age restrictions for certain social media platforms.
As of Dec. 10, minors in the former penal colony are prohibited from using various platforms, including Facebook, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, X, and YouTube — platforms that face potential fines exceeding $32 million should they fail to prevent kids from creating new accounts or from maintaining old accounts.
Australian kids were quick, however, to find a workaround: distorting their faces to appear older.
‘They know how important it is to give kids more time to just be kids.’
Numerous minors revealed to the Telegraph that within minutes of the ban going into effect, they were able to get past their country’s new age-verification technology by frowning at the camera.
Noah Jones, a 15-year-old boy from Sydney, indicated that he used his brother’s ID card to rejoin Instagram after the app flagged him as looking too young.
Jones, whose mother supported his rebellion and characterized the law as “poor legislation,” indicated that when Snapchat similarly prompted him to verify his age, “I just looked at [the camera], frowned a little bit, and it said I was over 16.”
RELATED: App allegedly endangers ICE agents — now its creator is suing the Trump administration
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP via Getty Images.
Jones suggested to the Telegraph that some teens may alternatively seek out social media platforms the Australian government can’t regulate or touch.
“Where do you think everyone’s going to?” said Jones. “Straight to worse social media platforms — they’re less regulated, and they’re more dangerous.”
Zarla Macdonald, a 14-year-old in Queensland, reportedly contemplated joining one such less-regulated app, Coverstar. However, she has so far managed to stay on TikTok and Snapchat because the age-verification software mistakenly concluded she was 20.
“You have to show your face, turn it to the side, open your mouth, like just show movement in your face,” said Macdonald. “But it doesn’t really work.”
Besides fake IDs and frowning, some teens are apparently using stock images, makeup, masks, and fake mustaches to fool the age-verification tech. Others are alternatively using VPNs and their parents’ accounts to get on social media.
The social media ban went into effect months after a government-commissioned study determined on the basis of a nationally representative survey of 2,629 kids ages 10 to 15 that:
- 71% had encountered content online associated with harm;
- 52% had been cyberbullied;
- 25% had experienced online “hate”;
- 24% had experienced online sexual harassment;
- 23% had experienced non-consensual tracking, monitoring, or harassment;
- 14% had experienced online grooming-type behavior; and
- 8% experienced image-based abuse.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement on Wednesday, “Parents, teachers, and students are backing in our social media ban for under-16s. Because they know how important it is to give kids more time to just be kids — without algorithms, endless feeds and online harm. This is about giving children a safer childhood and parents more peace of mind.”
The picture accompanying his statement featured a girl who in that moment expressed opposition to the ban.
The student in Albanese’s poorly chosen photo is hardly the only opponent to the law.
Reddit filed a lawsuit on Friday in Australia’s High Court seeking to overturn the ban. The U.S.-based company argued that the ban should be invalidated because it interfered with free political speech implied by Australia’s constitution, reported Reuters.
Australian Health Minister Mark Butler suggested Reddit was not suing to protect young Aussies’ right to political speech but rather to protect profits.
“It is action we saw time and time again by Big Tobacco against tobacco control, and we are seeing it now by some social media or Big Tech giant,” said Butler.
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Portland man allegedly lured 15-year-old girl from public library and raped her for days, police say
A 15-year-old girl told police that a man lured her from the Multnomah County Central Library in downtown Portland to a hotel, where he repeatedly raped her, according to court records.
On Saturday, a witness called police after seeing the girl appearing to be distraught in the downtown area, and when police questioned her, she said she had escaped her captor.
Court records state that she told him she was 15, and he replied, ‘No one has to know.’
She said the man had returned her to the library that day, and she was able to escape after saying she had to go to the bathroom.
Police went to the library and identified a suspect as 23-year-old Nicholas Matthew Tull.
The girl was a runaway and said she met Tull at the library three days earlier, where he offered to give her shelter in exchange for sex. When they went to a nearby hotel, he allegedly kept her against her will and sexually assaulted her for three days.
Tull was arrested, and the girl was treated at a medical center. She also underwent sexual-assault testing.
Court records state that she told him she was 15, and he replied, “No one has to know.”
Police said they were able to recover her purse from his property.
Court records show that Tull has been charged with three counts of first-degree rape, first-degree unlawful sexual penetration, three counts of first-degree sexual abuse, coercion, and luring a minor.
A local resident told KPTV-TV that there were a lot of problems at the library.
“I’ve noticed a lot of people on drugs, maybe houseless,” Lorenzo Stroud said. “I see a lot of problems, but I see the library people and the security doing a good job of de-escalating rather than being overly aggressive.”
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‘The Case for Miracles’: A stirring road trip into the heart of faith
Lee Strobel doesn’t mind those who question his midlife Christian conversion.
Strobel’s shift from an atheist to rock-ribbed Christian came to life in 2017’s “The Case for Christ.” The film, based on his life story, showed how Strobel’s efforts to debunk the resurrection of Jesus Christ as the legal editor of the Chicago Tribune had the opposite effect.
‘There is evidence that points — compelling [evidence] — to the truth of biblical miracles and contemporary supernatural encounters. I’m not afraid of that.’
He says his shoe-leather reporting confirmed the resurrection. Looking back, Strobel tells Align his change of heart ruffled some professional feathers.
“After I became a Christian at the Chicago Tribune, somebody told me later that they overheard somebody in the newsroom say, ‘What happened to Strobel? He became a Jesus freak, like, overnight,’” Strobel says, laughing.
Miracle miles
Now, Strobel is back on the big screen with “The Case for Miracles,” in select theaters Dec. 15-18 via Fathom Entertainment. The film finds Strobel and director Mani Sandoval hitting Route 66 in an old Ford Bronco to swap stories and reflect on modern-day miracles.
Among the most poignant? A young woman with severe multiple sclerosis who is able to leave her hospice bed following a crush of community prayers.
It’s part travelogue, part documentary, and Strobel only wishes he had time to share even more remarkable stories on-screen.
“We had to leave out so many good ones. … We had another case documented by medical researchers … a guy who was healed from a paralyzed stomach,” he says. “He was prayed for, felt an electric shock go through him, and for the first time was able to eat normally.”
“He’s fine to this day,” he adds. “It’s the only case in history of its kind of [someone] spontaneously healed from this stomach paralysis.”
Meeting in the middle
Strobel says the film offers two very different perspectives on modern-day miracles given the key players involved.
“Mani grew up in a Pentecostal home. There was an anticipation that the miraculous would take place,” he says. “I was an atheist [growing up].”
The film is based on Strobel’s 2018 book of the same name, but he hopes the Fathom Entertainment release reaches a broader audience beyond his loyal readers.
“I think that cinema is the language of young people,” he says. “If we want to share this account, this evidence of the miraculous with a young generation, what better way than on the big screen? Among younger people, there’s something about a film that register deeply with them. … We should seize opportunities to communicate to those outside the faith.”
RELATED: Lee Strobel’s top supernatural stories to challenge your atheist friends
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Creative control
And the timing couldn’t be better. Faith-friendly films and TV shows are all the rage in today’s pop-culture landscape. Think the groundbreaking series “The Chosen,” along with the upcoming “Passion of the Christ” sequel from Mel Gibson.
Both Netflix and Prime Video are producing faith-friendly content, and recent hits like “Jesus Revolution” flexed the power of spiritual stories.
“It satisfies me on a creative level when I see films that deal with very important topics, like the existence in God, in a way that’s creative and that aren’t going to make people cringe but sit forward in their seat and anticipate what’s coming next,” he says.
And that creative explosion has only begun, Strobel predicts.
“In three, four, or maybe five years, we’re gonna see stuff where we say, ‘Oh, I never thought of doing that,’” he says of the genre.
The incredible made credible
Strobel isn’t a filmmaker by trade. He’s a busy writer, having penned more than 40 books that have been translated into 40 languages.
Strobel, like the late Charlie Kirk, doesn’t mind interacting with skeptics on- or off-screen. He welcomes it. The book on which “The Case for Miracles” is based starts with an extended dialogue with noted atheist Michael Shermer.
Strobel eventually befriended Shermer, who has a cameo in the film version of “Miracles.”
“I let him have his say,” he says of their early exchanges. Strobel is confident in his faith and the miracles he sees flowing through it.
“There is evidence that points — compelling [evidence] — to the truth of biblical miracles and contemporary supernatural encounters,” he says. “I’m not afraid of that.”
For Strobel, a miracle requires four key elements:
- Solid medical documentation;
- Multiple, credible eyewitnesses who have no motive to deceive;
- A lack of natural explanation; and
- An association with prayer.
Meet all four requirements, he says, “and maybe something miraculous is going on.”
Strobel doesn’t mind that some of his former colleagues may question his religious conversion. He’s comforted by the fact that he has company in that regard.
“I’ve seen so many journalists coming to faith. … I think God is stirring something in the culture right now,” he says.
